My friend, compadre and sometime employer Mr. Tony James Shevlin has a single out now in advance of the release of his new record album, ‘American Odyssey’. Firstly, I will say that it’s not pulling up any trees in terms of re-inventing the form, and in my opinion it’s not the best song on the album – that would be either ‘Ride the Mississippi’ or ‘Tucumcari Sunset’ – the latter with a beautiful nylon-strung guitar solo that echoes Warren Zevon’s ‘Carmelita’ and the former a lolloping blues-groove number written, yes, by The Mississippi. The advantage here is that all these name-dropping songs were actually written in the places they check (as opposed to, say, Basildon) when Shev took himself off on a cape-trusting tour of songwriter’s nights, showcases and house concerts a couple of years ago. He’s roped in a gospel choir, a pedal steel (sadly no banjo) to evoke the sights, the sounds and yes, the smells, of a cross-country road trip involving just him, a guitar and a car. in the mean time, here’s a taster.
Tony James Shevlin – Travelling Man
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Good luck to him, Skirks. Are you on it yourself? And HAS he written songs about Basildon?
I’m not on this one. The last album did have a song called ‘Paradise, South Ealing’ if that helps..?
We do appear to be up to our earholes here lately in “Americana”.
Where’s all the “Britisha”? That’s what I’d like to know.